2015 SAHGBAnnual Lecture

The 2015 annual lecture was given by Deborah Howard, Professor Emerita of Architectural History and Director of Research at the University of Cambridge, where she is a fellow of St John’s College. She was Chairman of the SAHGB 1997-2000.

As architectural historians we tend to privilege innovation and to highlight those developments that lead forward. This tendency can hardly represent the intentions of the architect, who is obviously unable to predict the future. This lecture will therefore reconsider attitudes to age in the particular situation of Venice, where the difficult environmental conditions can lead buildings to decay faster than elsewhere. In a city ruled by a gerontocracy, how were the old, the antique and the venerable differentiated by architects, patrons and viewers?